I'm not a kid anymore, but sometimes...

I don't know what it is lately, but I been feeling mad.... nostalgic. I mean like thinking back, more than usual. 

Maybe it's because the seasons are changing. That usually does it to me. No more long days bullshittin with the people I like, love and some I don't, just for the hell of it. 

And I don't know about you, even though I'm only 23, the end of the summer just plain makes me feel OLD. Maybe it's the fact that I'm used to fall signaling the start of another school year. 

I just graduated from college (Howard: The best FIVE years of my life) and I'm a lil discombobulated at the fact that for the first time in over two decades, I don't have to buy school books, supplies, register for classes and don't hae to line up a fresh ass wardrobe for the first week of classes. I mean I'm still gonna go to work Extra fresh as hell for a whole week straight, but that's what I do anyway so it doesn't have the same appeal. I think all of that combined is just making me miss the old days real heavy. 

So you're just fonna hve to come with me for a minute as I think about the old days when it was aight to rock Fila...

The things that got me feenin for the 90's right now:

1. Crayola crayons

I know I said something but school supplies earlier, but specifically I miss crayons. Guess this says something about how juvenile I really am at heart, but I used to loooooove going to Krogers and picking out the 64 color box. Honestly, the only colors that really got any play were the red, black and brown and I could have just replaced those, but I loved getting a new box every year. I used to try and game my mom into getting me the 96 box, like I was gonna use those too, but she new better. I still get all tingly when I see a coloring book though...

2. Passing Notes

I don't know how many of ya'll did this, but in DPS, that shit was an art form . It wasn't so much what the notes said, but how they were created and then folded before they were passed off. I was cleaning out some of the old shit from my mom's house and came across a box full of notes from when I went to Stivers. When I tell you I was Picasso with them shits, believe me. I found one note that I wrote to an old friend and I have to believe that I didn't do shit in class. Every line was a different color and it was like two pages long, complete with drawings and of course one of those long ass signatures: Signed, Phree aka Twix, bka Mrs. Dotson (shouts out to Juju wherever you are) aka pimp of the year, M.O.B., Pimpin aint easy, hoes is just dumb, your bff 2 gether 4ever, and so on. And it didn't stop there. You had to be a damn licensed architiect to even open the thing. One was actually in the shape of a flower!!!

3. The Flyy City/Black Cultural /Precious Blood Festival and the Montgomery County Fair

This one is for all my DYT people. Before niggas started losing their home training and shooting up everything, there was nothing better about being in Dayton at the end of the summer. Those festivals/fairs that I named were THEE Shit! When I was young (like 10 - 14) it was fun to go for the rides and the food. WHen I hit high school, they all took on a whole new meaning. I can remember buying a whole new polo outfit to go to Flyy city and see who I could see. ANd of course this was before everybody and they 2 year old cousin had a cell phone, so you had to carry a pen and at least one piece of notebook paper so you could get and give your pager number out.

(Side note: Even though I thought I was pretty damn Phlyy cause I had an upright pager for the longest and I used to change cases like every week, why the fuck did we have pagers? Most of us just used them to type codes and shit anyway. Remember what 304 meant or 17 31707 1?)

4. The old Dayton Public Schools Sports league

Another one for Dayton folk specifically. Before they combined Roth and Colonel White ( and I don't care how nice the new building looks, I'm always gonna miss the one on Niagara) and disbanded the league, I loved sports season. Any damn sport. Basketball at the schools, track and football at Welcome. Remember how for a while, CW was known for killing everyone in basketball, Dunbar couldn't be fucked with in football, Meadowdale had good looking cheerleaders at every game and Jefferson was.... Jefferson?

I used to love going to Welcome Stadium for the football games. That was like the highlight of my week. Moms would get me and my friends together, load us up in the Saturn and then after she'd worked her magic and gotten us in the door for free we'd be off. I don't ever remember sitting down at one of those games. I spent the whole time lookin for cute boys I didn't already know (but then again we WERE in Dayton, so you know how much luck I had with that. ), chillin with the homies and just acting an ass in general. 

5.  Kissing

I know we all grown now and we all probably do way more than kiss, but remember back before you became the experience freak that you are and just kissing the person that you liked was a big deal? 

I miss that shit the most

A bad kiss left you with slobber all around the outside of your mouth and something to laugh about with your peoples. A good kiss left you with something to think about all through the next day and even more to tell your friends about. I'm talking bout the kind of kissing that lasted for at least 15 minutes at a time and had me in class the next day drawing his and my names all over every single piece of paper that I owned in different variations.  I remember the secrecy of it all. Acting like 007 and scouting out new places to kiss in. I remember when kissing was the goal and there was no pressure to actually have sex. Maybe grab a feel here and there, but that was ok

Those are the top five things that I'm reminiscing on right about now. They aren't the only ones, cause I remember corner stores and actually walking places and don't get me started on that the short lived Island skating rink, Island park in general, skipping school at the bus station downtown and the Salem Mall. Retreats and movies at the Northwest Theater down the street from my house. Shit that takes me back to when my mom worried about my bills and I worried about... nothing. Before I had to worry about taxes, insurance and all the other stuff grownups worried about. My mother always told me not to be in a hurry to grow up cause I was gonna wish I was young again.

I'll be damned if she wasn't right....

*cues Skee-Lo- I wish*